I’ll never forget the first time I crossed paths with Out of This World (known as Another World in Europe). It was the summer of 1991, I was 12, and on the prowl for a new PC game in Babbage's at the mall. The second game I picked up to look at was Eric Chahis’ Out of This World and immediately had to have it based on the graphics alone… it looked amazingly similar to a cartoon. Of course, I had no clue what I was signing up for. The game looked brilliant due to the rotoscoping, had a HUGE story, contained a very unique “living” and believable world as well as a sense of character, and… was / still is insanely hard.

I didn't take notice of the music in game until playing it on the Super Nintendo in 1993 and again in 1994 when I purchased it a third time for the Sega CD. That was the version I almost completed and immediately noticed something special about, the music was totally different than the other versions (save for piece for the intro in Lesters lab which is basically carried through almost all of the versions of the game released). Turns out the Sega CD port of the game is the only version to fully feature composer Jean-Francois Freitas’ soundtrack in its entirety and precisely how he had meant for it to be heard. That is the version of the soundtrack this release covers. Out of This World / Another World hit me like a ton of bricks and is a game I still play at least once a year to this day. The game and creator Eric Chahi were both way ahead of their time ultimately creating a game that would totally be at home on the indie scene today. Another World is timeless and a game I hold dear to my heart which is why I felt the time was right to re-record and release the entire soundtrack through the Materia Collective.

My re-recording of the score for this release features newly recorded modern versions of Jean-Francois Freitas’ moody soundtrack for Out of This World. The idea with this release (as well as many others I have put together) was to modernize the game’s score into something that would be right at home in a newly released version of the game or even a film. The first piece on the album is instantly recognizable from the intro sequence before Lester gets teleported out to another world and features a motif I decided to carry throughout the score to bring more cohesion to the album. Also, this is one of the few pieces to feature robust and more traditional orchestration. The second Lester gets teleported, the music takes another direction featuring more avante garde / textural orchestra fare to build otherworldly tension as well as a handful of synthesizer work while retaining the original themes and motifs by Freitas. Admittedly, there are a few references to one of my favorite composers, the late / great Jerry Goldsmith.

This release is something I have wanted to do for quite some time and I couldn’t be more thrilled with both how it turned out and to finally have the opportunity to release something through the awesome guys over at Materia. I hope you all have as much fun revisiting the score and universe of Another World as I did while creating this album.